I do remember the exact moment my beautiful date destroyed my nice white shirt. (Pictured above, in better times.) One second I was sitting at a table, outdoors, on the patio of a beautiful house overlooking a vineyard, eating dinner in my summery Miami Vice drug lord shirt, and next thing I knew I was covered in red wine from neck to knee while my date apologized profusely. My date’s finger caught my wine glass, the wine hit my plate at good speed and ricocheted up into my shirt and splashed down onto my shorts. She was mortified. I told her it was OK, and that everything would be all right and that there was no need to worry. She did not know what I knew. She did not know that I had a backup shirt.

Calmly, without drawing attention to myself, I walked away from the table, to my car, removed one shirt and replaced it with another. I also – and this should not come as a surprise to you at this point – keep an emergency pair of jeans in my car. I purchased them at Costco a few years ago, because like all men, I am slowly turning into my dad. I call these jeans my Kirkland Signature jeans. Standing next to my car, where only the neighbor’s horses could see me, I stripped down to my boxers and put on my white-and-caramel striped backup shirt and jeans and socks and shoes. My date went into clean-up mode. She greeted me back at the house with club soda in hand. We washed the shirt in a sink and then put shirt and shorts in the washing machine. I returned to my dinner plate. But what I really returned to was more tragedy.